Catalogue description Records of the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society

DDX 1795/1 Minutes of Council and Committees

DDX 1795/1/1 Council

DDX 1795/1/2 Finance and General Purposes Committee

DDX 1795/1/3 Show Yard Committee

DDX 1795/1/4 Works Committee

DDX 1795/1/5 Catering Committee

DDX 1795/1/6 Dairy Show Committee

DDX 1795/1/7 Horticultural Committee

DDX 1795/1/8 Judges Selection Committee

DDX 1795/1/9 Scrutiny Committee

DDX 1795/1/10 Annual General Meeting of members: printed agenda with annual report of Council

DDX 1795/2 Financial records

DDX 1795/3 Secretarial files

DDX 1795/4 Show records

DDX 1795/4/1 Show catalogues

DDX 1795/4/2 Supplementary and dog show catalogues

DDX 1795/4/3 Prize schedules: livestock

DDX 1795/4/4 Prize schedules: dog show

DDX 1795/4/5 Prize schedules: miscellaneous

DDX 1795/4/6 "Claims Books"

DDX 1795/4/7 Award books

DDX 1795/4/8 Showground plans

DDX 1795/4/9 Photographs

DDX 1795/4/10 Miscellaneous show records

DDX 1795/5 Publications

DDX 1795/5/1 Journal of the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society

DDX 1795/5/2 Miscellaneous publications

DDX 1795/6 Newspaper cuttings

(For a note concerning the Manchester Agricultural Society 1806-07 see DDHU 53/82/164; DDSC 146/1(4) contains rules and premiums of the MAS, including lists of officers and subscribers, 1799-1804)

Manchester Agricultural Society, 1787 - 1847, Lancashire

Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Society, 1847 - 1875, Lancashire

Royal Manchester, Liverpool and North Lancashire Agricultural Society, 1875 - 1893, Lancashire

Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society, 1893 -, Lancashire

Summaries of records in many sections of this catalogue - e.g. Council proceedings and prize lists - may be found in the Society's Journal, at DDX 1795/5/1-79. The Journal also contains several items on the Society's history: see especially DDX 1795/5/1/1 and 5/1/31-32. A celebration of the Society's history may be found in the souvenir brochure at DDX 1795/5/2/6. Some accumulations of "historical" papers, including some concerning the amalgamation with the Royal North Lancashire Agricultural Society, have been listed among the secretarial files at DDX 1795/3/1 and 3/2.

• Lancashire
• Agriculture

The purpose of this organisation is "The encouragement and general advancement of the science and practice of agriculture" (From DDX 1795/5/2/6). It fulfils this purpose by competition, demonstration, and dissemination of information, specifically by holding shows, giving prizes, and publishing its journal.

Nomenclature

The RLAS has its origins in the Manchester Agricultural Society, founded in 1767 This society amalgamated with that from Liverpool (instituted 1830) in 1847, to become the Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Society. A further amalgamation in 1874, with the Royal North Lancashire Agricultural Society (formed 1847), brought about another change of name in April 1875, to the Royal Manchester, Liverpool and North Lancashire Agricultural Society. The organisation was reconstituted in 1893 as the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society, limiting the Society's boundaries to that county where before it had reached into Cheshire and North Wales. The main administrative records in this collection which predate 1893 concern the Manchester and Liverpool Society; few records relate specifically to the Royal North Lancashire Society.

Organisation

The Royal Manchester, Liverpool and North Lancashire Agricultural Society was initially governed by a Council formed from members of its 5 Divisions, which replaced the Manchester and Liverpool Society's system of government by committee, sub-committees and general members' meetings. The Council was intended to meet quarterly and was officially divided into four sub-committees in March 1887, comprising the Showyard, Journal and Prize List, Finance and General Purposes, and Education and Field Trials Committees. By 1891 these had been reduced to three committees: Finance and General Purposes, Showyard and Prize List, and Journal, Education and Field Trials. Their duties were listed thus:

Finance and General Purposes Committee: "To revise all accounts, make contracts, superintend pay-gates at Show, draw cheques for payment of all accounts, prizes, and certified charges" Showyard and Prize List Committee: "To draw prize lists, to submit to general meetings, plan and arrange Show-yard, make contracts for fittings and forage, &c., and to nominate Judges and Stewards of departments to Council"

Journal, Education and Field Trials Committee: "To arrange for experimental trial crops, inspect during season and report thereon at close, and appoint examiners for educational prizes" (From DDX 1795/1/2/1)

The 1893 reorganisation formed the Society into three geographical divisions, each electing representatives to the Council. Various minor committees were formed, as reflected in the minute books in the collection, but by 1925 the main committees, and their duties, were:

Finance and General Purposes Committee: "To examine accounts, sign cheques, and consider contracts"

Works Committee: "To make arrangements for the annual fitting - up of the Show-yard by the Society"

Catering Committee: "To make arrangements for the undertaking of the whole of the Catering in the Show Yard by the Society" Showyard and Prize List Committee: "To prepare draft prize lists, also lists of Judges and Stewards for the Council's assistance, and generally to consider all matters connected with the annual exhibitions" (From the Journal of the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society, 1926 (DDX 1795/5/1/40))

Essentially this organisation seems to have been maintained, though the Show Yard and Prize List Committee was renamed the Programme and Prize List Committee in 1955.

The Society also had representatives on the Joint Agricultural Sub-Committee of the Lancashire County Council Education Committee, which appears by 1925 to have eclipsed the Society's former committee on field trials. See the LCC Education Committee, Agricultural Sub-Committee minutes 1905-72 (CC/EAM 1-18) and Farm Sub-Committee minutes 1904-53 (CC/EAS 1/1-40); these sub-committees had predecessors under the Technical Instruction Committee.

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